Saga of Steel
by Aaron Cross
Summary: Be advised, this does not folow the usual 'X is the good guy, Sigma is the biggest bad guy' routine. Zero meets his new student under some strange circumstances, and pain ensues. Nonromantic. Note that this is part of a larger series. Please R&R.


Saga of Steel, Part I: Revelations

Sierra awoke, shaking her head woozily. The ceiling above was a cool, metallic gray; so too were the walls, and what she could see of the floor.

Her sensors, aside from optical and normal audio, didn't seem to be working quite right, and there was a stabbing pain somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach.

One gloved hand reached to the place the pain seemed to be coming from; her gloved fingers struck something, and as they did, something very nasty lashed out at her mind.

The restraining bolt was still in place, and still very much active.

Slowly, carefully, Sierra slipped from the infirmary-style bed, her bare feet tickling with the static shock and coolness of the bare metal. She was wearing something akin to a motocross racer's uniform, loose leather trousers and jacket over a half-top that left her midriff bare, revealing the blinking light on the back of the restraining bolt. Not the same clothes she'd been wearing when they took her in, but they were at least wearable. Her hair probably looked like she'd been letting a small child play in it, and understandably so; she'd been handled somewhat roughly when they'd taken her in.

They'd finally come with the dart gun and the black van, after letting Sierra and Melissa lay unconscious for the better part of ten minutes. The foreign coding the device put into her system had awakened Sierra, but by then it was already too late; they had her, and she couldn't do anything about it, without causing herself a -lot- of pain.

Which was, she mused, rather odd. She was, after all a robot.

Then again, she had once been human, so maybe the feelings carried over.

Either way, she and Melissa had been taken in, and then... nothing. No funny business, just a lockdown. Whatever else these people might be, they were not, apparently, interested in the 'goods'. Or maybe they were just afraid of her. Whichever way you look at it, it was one mark in her favor.

She had been separated from Melissa at some point after arriving at... wherever the hell they'd been taken. It hadn't been a long trip, but most of her sensors were out, so Sierra had no idea which direction they had been taken after being caught. 

Her musings were interrupted, at this point, by the arrival of three men in green jumpsuits. One of them had a small hand-held remote, presumably for the restraining bolt; the other two were, apparently, his guards, for they carried weapons of some type Sierra could not immediately recognize. The barrels were wide, and seemed to be lined with some sort of crystalline, red material, but aside from that she couldn't tell anything else about them, except that they looked mean.

"Boss's orders; we're to escort you to the hangar. Come with us." It was not a request, and there was no sense in resisting, so Sierra obeyed.

Down one corridor, up another, into an elevator, across a catwalk over a darkened room... Everything seemed made of metal, whether steel or something more exotic Sierra couldn't be sure. Strange, she noted, but not unheard of. There were parts of the FATE base that were much the same. Generally the parts that had heavy loads passing through them.

It hit her like a brick. The slight, almost subliminal hum; the heavy footfalls, much heavier sounding than necessary for a human of the same proportions. The faint glow of the eyes in the dark room...

Her escorts were androids, or well made robots, of a type she could not immediately mark.

Well. That explained why nobody had tried anything. They simply didn't care.

This realization on her mind, she walked in silent thought through corridor after featureless corridor.

Finally, after nearly thirty minutes of this monotony, they emerged into a large, vaulted room full of... well, Sierra couldn't really tell -what- they were.

There were a few that looked like standard air cars, several that resembled old-fashioned military jets, and many, many more that she was simply unable to compare to anything familiar.

One, for instance, was a cigar-shaped affair, with a pair of stubby fins (or were they wings?) near the back, on a triangle of landing gear. It had a pair of nasty-looking emitters on the front, which Sierra readily recognized as plasma cannons, of a type generally not seen outside the ultra-high-secrecy military programs. Like FATE.

Another of the unknown things loomed before them, a low, squat affair that looked like an ancient discus, but for the single protrusion at the front that seemed to hold the cockpit. There was a horizontal row of engines at the rear of the craft, four large nozzles and about eight evenly spaced smaller ones. Sierra guessed it was some kind of thrust-vectoring system, though she'd never seen a similar design before.

It was to the entry ramp of this craft that her escorts marched Sierra. The ramp hissed closed behind them, and Sierra was led through the craft's interior, before being showed into a room that might once have been some sort of stateroom, before the graviton shield had been installed in the doorway.

The funny thing was, if she'd really wanted, Sierra could probably have just gone through the wall, completely ignoring the doorway. But to do so would probably invite the most exquisite agony she would ever feel, and probably get her melted down in the process, so she didn't.

The ship powered up around her, and she could hear the high-pitched keening of the repulsors even through the several inches of steel and circuitry that separated her from the repulsor engines, let alone the lift surfaces. That she could hear them at all startled her, somewhat; repulsors were widely reputed to be the quietest means of propulsion out there. Whatever these were lifting, it had to be -immense-, and that ruled out just an ordinary airship. Or, at least, an ordinary cargo.

Then again, considering the nature of this ship's crew, Sierra had to admit that it was not, perhaps, all that strange after all.

She was not expecting the sudden acceleration spike, or the mind-numbing g-forces applied to her body as the craft quickly raced all the way up to mach ten, and stayed there. "Well, bang goes that theory..." she said, as she picked herself up off the floor. "We're definitely not in the city."

This was no short trip; the small ship carved its way through the atmosphere, thrusters glowing white as they poured out ionized particles and waste gasses, and gave no hint of slowing down, let alone stopping.

Sierra was no stranger to most forms of transport. In her service with FATE, she'd been on everything from a deep-sea submersible to one of the Air Force's most advanced fighter jets.

The sheer power of this ship put them all to shame.

And Sierra found herself very much wanting one of her own.

TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES LATER (8:45 PM)  
SOMEWHERE IN THE SIERRA MADRE RANGE

A tall, bald man, strongly built and heavily covered in red and gold-colored clothing, paced around the small office. There were no windows, no locks, not even a real desk... but it was an office, for all that, for the man walking around the room needed none of those things.

He was not, in truth, a man. His skeleton was a ferrous ceramic composite, his muscles myomer fibers, his eyes mostly crystal but for the tiny trace wires. Even his skin was false; on close inspection, one could tell it was some sort of artificial material, made to closely resemble skin, but not quite accomplishing the job.

The orbs that stared at nothing were a harsh, diseased-seeming yellow with green irises, and the brows around them were creased only as a gesture to his underlings' incompetence.

Sigma was agitated, and most people would have done well to avoid him in such a state.

Then again, most people weren't his business partners.

There was a light tap at the door (it sounded light, anyway; a normal human would have had to drive their full weight into it to even make a muted 'clunk' sound on the inside), and, before Sigma could tell the latest in a series of errant lackeys to leave him in peace (or, perhaps, pieces; Sigma was an android who disliked incessant interruptions), the invader had entered.

He didn't look like much at first glance. His clothing was mostly blue, in a few clashing shades, and fairly utilitarian. He wore a helmet for no discernable reason, with a large, gaudy red gem set in the center of the forehead. And the features that adorned his face made him look rather dumpy.

Most of that ceased to matter overmuch when one observed his left arm, though. From the elbow down, what should have been flesh (or a reasonable facsimile) was metal of an alloy not immediately definable, and at the end of this curious appendage was a red emitter lens.

Most people generally didn't walk around with particle-accelerating cannons grafted into their arms. Or, if they did, they generally didn't do so with those cannons in plain view.

X had never bothered to learn the meaning of the word 'subtle', though, and so he made no effort to conceal it.

"Sigma... A shuttle has just docked in Hangar D. I think our mercenary friends have made good on their offer."

Sigma nodded. "Very well. Have the usual preparations been made?"

"Yes. They will not leave here alive."

"Good. Now, if you'll excuse me, X, I need to get a few things from the armory, and I'll join you in greeting our... guests."

X nodded and excused himself, a half-grin touching his lips. His partner could be so overdramatic sometimes...

But then, what was the purpose in existing, if not to amuse oneself?

TEN MINUITES LATER HANGAR D

The armed escorts that had brought Sierra onto the shuttle were back at her door as the ship touched down, and one of them held the deactivator for the restraining bolt.

"Okay, little girl, listen up. You mess this up, you die. These are people you -do not- want angry with you. Play your cards right and you might even survive this little exchange," said the one with the pistol, gesturing with his weapon as he felt it relevant.

Sierra nodded once, her eyes on the one with the deactivator. He made no sign that he was going to use it any time soon, though, so Sierra sighed lightly and followed the four of them out of the room and through the hallway that seemed to encircle the middle parts of the ship.

At last, they reached a lift and bundled in, leaving very little room for anything else. The cold muzzle of the gun-wielding thug's weapon was at her back, not quite touching but close enough for her to know it was there.

The lift descended, and Sierra got her first glimpse at... well, there wasn't really a hell of a lot to look at. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all bare steel, and there were two other nearly identical shuttles parked next to the one she'd come in on. There were a couple of large, robotic-looking frames over near the side door, but not much else. Not even an obvious fuel source.

Three figures awaited them as they descended the unshielded lift. One was a tall, imposing-looking man in red and gold. At his left was a younger looking person, wearing mostly blue, and what looked like a clubbed arm. To the taller man's right was a slim, athletic-looking figure with long, blonde hair. This one drew most of Sierra's immediate attention, because he seemed to be wearing -armor-.

The taller one stepped forward, his right hand hovering near a small, silvery cylinder at its waistline. "Where's the cyborg?" it asked, in a strong, masculine voice.

"Right here. Where's our payment?" said the one with the disarming control for the restraining bolt.

"You'll get your payment. Hand the girl over."

Slightly intimidated, the one with the gun made the mistake of pointing it toward Sigma. "Not until we get our money."

The blue guy raised his arm, and there was a clearly audible whine. "Put the pea shooter down, pal."

The glowing red emitter lens was more than enough to convince thug #2, and he slowly, carefully stooped down to the floor and put his gun down.

X smirked and lowered his arm, though the whine didn't stop. It remained, like some gigantic insect, reminding the four mercenaries that they had already made their one mistake, and that only by the grace of whatever higher power they worshipped were they still alive.

The one with the bolt release stepped toward Sierra and pressed the release button, catching the bolt as it fell away. He was very careful not to touch the two long, sharp points extending from the bottom of the bolt, and kept his hand well away from the red switch on the small palm device he held.

The one in the red armor beckoned Sierra forward, no trace of whatever emotion he might have been feeling evident on his face. Hesitantly, as all her other senses kicked back in, she moved forward and joined the three of them.

As she passed by the one in blue, she heard a loud 'snap' sound, and chanced to look back.

The one that had put his gun down had, apparently, made a move for it. For his trouble, he had been relieved of his arm and most of the right half of his torso. The wires and circuitry Sierra could see through the huge hole were charred, and the body twitched as if someone had held it up to a huge magnet.

In the far wall, a sizeable dent had suddenly appeared, with glowing orange edges, a silent testament to the power of X's buster cannon.

Sierra cringed, and felt a hand on her shoulder. It was gloved, and a bit oversized, and there was red armor plating attached to it. She looked at Zero's face and, for the briefest of moments, saw true emotion in his eyes.

It was gone so quickly, though, that she was almost convinced it had been an illusion, her subconscious playing tricks on her. The three remaining mercenaries hadn't moved to help their comrade or to avenge him; they were all eyeing the one in blue's arm cannon warily, perhaps considering a plan of attack that might relieve him of that weapon.

The plan wasn't forthcoming, apparently, for they all slumped after a moment's intense scrutiny from Sigma and X.

Sigma took Sierra by the shoulder, and began leading her away. X followed, a veiled grin on his face. Zero stayed put, his hand near a white, metallic handle protruding from a belt holster.

As Sigma reached the door, he shouted back to Zero, "Do be a gentleman and pay these nice fellows, Zero. They've come such a long way to bring us this charming little flower..."

As the door closed behind them, Sierra heard screaming and saw a flash of green light... and then nothing.

For some odd reason, this seemed to make X quite amused, as he chuckled, low and dark.

Aside from the chuckling, there was no conversation between the three of them as they walked down gray corridor after depressing gray corridor. The halls seemed to go on forever, and there were no decorations whatsoever, as if the designers had lacked even the desire to have a sense of aesthetics.

As they walked, Sierra harbored no doubts that she was in extremely deep trouble. If the blue one held that much power in his arm, then the taller one, obviously the leader, surely held more... And what of the other one?

Sierra was almost certain she'd seen sadness in his eyes, but also something else. He'd killed those others, she was certain of it... but only because he'd been told to do so. Told, by the taller one, with the Greek symbol 'Sigma' on his forehead. What was he, then? Some sort of puppet? Or perhaps, like herself, he had been restrained.

But no, there had been no evidence of a bolt on him anywhere. Then again, that didn't mean anything...

As she ruminated on this, they came to a stop outside a door, painted in light blue and black, a slightly ostentatious 'SG108' in the center, where one would normally see a nameplate. Neither Sigma nor X moved to open this door, and Sierra almost walked into it head on before realizing her mistake. Turning back to her escorts, she asked, "What now?"

Sigma chuckled. "Now, my dear, you go to sleep. You're going to need your rest... because your training begins tomorrow."

"Training?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. X chuckled at the gesture. It was so... -human-...

"Yes, training. You'll be studying energy weapons and intermediate martial artistry with Zero."

"Why... are you training me? I never said I'd join your little group..."

"You don't have a choice in the matter, kid. Now, either get in there and sleep or we'll -make- you sleep. Maybe permanently." X wasn't joking, this time; his arm was making that eerie, high-pitched whine again, and, now that she was in a darker area with him, she could also see the accompanying glow of his forehead gem. Resisting the urge to swallow, she turned back to the door, searching for a handle. Finding none, she asked, "How do I open it?"

Sigma tsk'd and tapped a spot on the door. Looking closer, Sierra could see that it was some sort of touch-pad. At Sigma's touch, the door hissed open, revealing a room that, had she not been preoccupied, Sierra would have thought was rather more charming than anything else she'd seen of the facility.

It was a nice room, done in shades of red and tan, furnished in early Victorian redwood. There were two sturdy-looking chairs, a bed, and a profusion of pillows, most of them with a flower motif (mostly roses, she noted).

On one wall were three large banners, hanging vertically. Painted on the white material were symbols from a foreign language Sierra recognized as Japanese, yet could not translate. They looked martial, though, somewhat at odds with the rather sedate appearance of the rest of the room.

Shrugging off the impression, she lay back on the bed, and reflected that she was having one hell of a strange week. As she dwelt upon this, she drifted off to sleep.

THE NEXT MORNING (6:00 AM)

As the alarm someone had set near the head of her bed went off, Sierra came fully awake to find something cold and metallic at her neck. Slowly, carefully, she allowed her eyes to track along the length of the blade, to the hands that held it, and finally to the face of her attacker.

The red armor was enough to tell her that this was, indeed, the same person who had been left behind the day before to take care of the three remaining mercenaries. The same person whose eyes had held that spark of emotion...

They were chips of ice, now. Down the blade he glared at her, awaiting her first move. She made none. There was no way she could have evaded the strike, as close as the blade was to her throat, and she had no weapon with which to parry. She slumped a bit, still looking her assailant in the eye, and waited.

They remained thus for a few minutes, his blade never moving, she never flinching away. Then, seemingly satisfied, Zero sheathed the weapon and held out a hand to her. Silently, she took the offered hand, and followed him out of the room.

They traveled only a short distance before emerging into a dimly lit room, about the size of a school gymnasium and with even less furnishings. There were two sets of kneepads, one facing the other, in the center of the floor, and a rack of wooden practice weapons on the far wall.

It was to the kneepads that Zero led her, before taking the set nearest the weapon rack. He gestured at the other pads and Sierra kneeled, facing him.

When he finally spoke, his voice was mellow, without the hard edge both Sigma and X seemed to have affected. Still, there was a solid quality to it, like a mountain in a hurricane. It was a voice, Sierra figured, that she could easily come to like.

"You are here, today, to become my student. Is this the course of action you wish to pursue?" he asked, looking her straight in the eye.

Sierra raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't given to understand that I had a choice in the matter."

Zero nodded. "Well, you have one now. You may either study with me, or join the other hopeless fools in the normal classes. It will be difficult. You may be a machine, but there is much potential locked within you, potential you will have to work to unlock. There will come a time when you cease to be as you are, and are born anew, forged in the flames of trial and struggle. Are you willing to study with me?"

Sierra considered her options, briefly. On the one hand, she could feign weakness and probably get out of the hard work, and probably wind up free, at some point.

On the other hand, she could work hard at learning what this person had to teach her, quite possibly learning enough to break free from whoever or whatever stood in her way. It would be difficult, but...

Sierra made a snap decision. "I will study... sensei."

Zero nodded. "We will begin with breathing exercises. Draw the air into your body, using the muscles of your stomach as well as those of your diaphragm. Deeply... deeply... and release." He demonstrated the technique, and gave Sierra a look that informed her she was supposed to be following his example.

She did, and felt the difference almost immediately. Whereas she had been simply breathing before, now she was drawing strength from the air, truly benefiting from the exertion.

They continued in this manner for the better part of an hour. Sierra was just beginning to feel the world around her dim when Zero lunged forward, his fingers in a deadly wedge aimed straight at her throat. Sierra deflected the strike, but felt the cold touch of steel at her throat before she could counter.

"Never allow your mind to lose its focus on your opponent. The instant you do, you will die," Zero intoned, pulling the blade away and resheathing it at his back.

Sierra was visibly daunted by the cold precision and lightning speed with which she had been dispatched. Zero stood and gestured to the rack of wooden weapons.

"The two spears, pupil."

Sierra arose and walked over to the rack, losing her breathing cadence almost immediately. She felt the cold steel at her neck again. "You will breathe as you have been taught within these walls, my student."

Sierra gasped as the blade nicked her when he jerked it back. She raised a hand to the injury automatically, and felt warm fluid. Blood. -Her- blood. It was a shallow cut, true, but it had still drawn blood. She shuddered silently as she realized just what sort of edge would have to be on that weapon to cause even such a small injury. Shuddered, and vowed never to earn such an injury again.

Vows of that type were meant to be broken, though, and, by the end of the short sparring session, she sported three more injuries, at various points of her body. She was breathing hard by now (a fairly remarkable feat, for a cyborg), but she was still breathing -properly-.

Zero marveled silently at his student. She already had a decent grasp of empty handed fighting, and was nearly his equal there in sheer terms of basic knowledge. She'd already surpassed his first three students, simply by remaining conscious to this point, and he was mightily impressed.

Not that he was about to tell her so. Such was the benefit of being the teacher; he didn't have to reveal -anything- to his student. Not whether or not she was doing well, not if he was angry or pleased with her... nothing.

They continued in this manner, with half-hour breathing breaks in between the various weapon-based sparring sessions, for much of the day.

She actually managed to -hit- him with only one weapon, the large, seemingly decorative wooden fans. Sierra had proven herself worthy enough with the fans that Zero gave her a pair from the training set.

Thus equipped, Sierra was dismissed from the dojo, instructed to go to the cafeteria for whatever food or energy she might need, and then to go to bed and sleep as much as she could.

The day's lessons buzzed in her mind as she trod wearily down the hallways. There had been times when she'd felt certain she was about to lose her mind with the painful exertion. Apparently, they hadn't replaced -all- of the muscles in her body, and even the myomer fibers felt strained as she limped into the cafeteria.

It was a surreal feeling, eating her protein compound next to such obvious robots as the likes of Overdrive Ostrich and Burn Rooster (such strange names, but, oddly, they fit), but not in a bad way. A few of them tried to talk to her, but mostly they left her alone. They could tell she was a newbie, simply by looking at her. After all, they'd've remembered a reploid of her design.

After a few minutes navigating her newly rediscovered sense of taste around the bland protein mush, Sierra sighed and threw her plate in the incinerator. Burn and Overdrive chuckled behind her. "Zero's newest playmate. Wonder how long it took her to pass out?" said Burn, crowing (apparently, his version of laughter).

Overdrive gave Sierra an appraising look. "Five minutes, tops."

Neither of them could fathom the smirk on her face as she left the room, and neither felt particularly like finding out. There were more important things to discuss, after all. Like soccer.

As she walked back down the lifeless corridor, Sierra couldn't help feeling a bit down about the whole situation. She'd been here most of a day already, and she'd still failed to make any effort at all toward an escape. 'Then again,' she reflected, 'I haven't really had -time- to try anything...'

Upon reaching her quarters, Sierra was mildly surprised to find someone in her room. She was a well-proportioned girl, verging on womanhood but not quite there yet, with the most strikingly blue hair Sierra had ever seen. She had red eyes and a visor of some sort, though Sierra couldn't figure out its purpose. She was wearing what looked like a leotard and what looked suspiciously like a loin cloth, all in light blue, and a long, black glove covering most of her left arm.

At her hips rode a pair of what looked like blaster pistols, to Sierra's eyes, and she carried a long, metallic rod in her right hand.

What struck Sierra, however, was her face. She had no expression whatsoever, though she was apparently capable of forming one if she wished. Almost... -dead-.

Almost, but not, apparently, there yet. "Sigma asked me to make certain you do not attempt to escape," she said, in cold, flat tones.

Sierra nodded wearily. "Right now, lady, all I wanna do is crawl into that bed there and sleep for about two years."

The girl nodded. "Master Zero's training methods tend to invoke that reaction"  
Sierra yawned and shrugged. "Whatever. See you in the morning, if you're still there... What am I supposed to call you, anyway?"

The reply came flatly, Sierra would almost have said coldly, if it were not for the utter lack of emotion in the android's eyes, "I am KOS-MOS."

Sierra raised an eyebrow, and yawned again. "Okay, Cosmos. Good night..." And, with that, Sierra was out. KOS-MOS remained standing by the door, like some sort of British sentry, unmoving, unblinking, unwavering, throughout the night.

THE NEXT MORNING (MARCH 10, 6:00 AM)  
SIERRA'S ROOM

Sierra woke once again to the feeling of cold steel at her throat. As she fully regained consciousness, she noted that it was, again, Zero, this time wearing what looked like a gi and hakama instead of his armor. In his left hand, he held a set of similar garments, along with Sierra's battle fans. "Weapons are useless if they are not within reach," he said, before removing his blade from her throat. By the door, KOS-MOS stood, stock still, her expression unchanged, a statue of steel and flesh.

She sat up, yawning, and regarded her teacher with one eyebrow raised. She shrugged this off as pointless, however, and instead turned her gaze on KOS-MOS. "Thought you were supposed to be looking after me, Cosmos."

"I am under orders to keep you from escaping. Nothing more."

"Bah. You could've at least helped a fellow girl keep a man out of her sleeping quarters..."

"I could have, but I will not. Such are my orders."

Sierra palmed her forehead and took the proffered garments from Zero. "I'll be along in a minute, sensei... A bit of privacy, please?"

For a moment, Sierra was half-convinced that she would be forced to change in front of him. Only for a moment, though, as Zero nodded and turned to leave the room. KOS-MOS followed, though Sierra was quite certain she had only gone just outside the door. Shrugging, she slipped out of the clothes she'd been wearing for the past three days and into the monsuke and hakama Zero had provided. She'd worn wraparound tunics similar to the monsuke before, so there was no real problem in figuring it out. She knotted the belt in front (not, as some women might have, at the side) and thrust her fans between the overlapping layers of the belt, luckily finding the catches that would hold them in place.

Thus attired, she palmed the door of her room open...

and parried Zero's strike with a closed fan.

He nodded and re-sheathed his blade. "You're learning," he said with a grin, before walking on down the corridor, motioning for her to follow. KOS-MOS was nowhere to be seen.

Sierra tsk'd and wondered if she'd ever figure these people out, then followed the same path she'd taken the day before to reach Zero's dojo.

As she entered the dojo, she spotted Zero over on the knee rests, hands on his knees, eyes closed. His back and chest moved evenly, rhythmically, almost as if he were asleep.

Sierra took her place opposite him, and, for lack of a better idea, emulated him. As she knelt there and breathed, she felt her throat turning cold, along with the areas around her eyes and mouth. Darkness crept in on her peripheral vision, but she forced it back. It wouldn't do to lose herself to the trance again, after last time.

After a few minutes, Zero seemed to notice her. Without a word, he rose to his feet and glided to the rack of weapons, extracting a bokuto of ebony-stained wood.

Sierra stood smoothly, extracting one of the fans from her belt and spreading it before her. She stood there, silently, watching him over the top edge of the fan.

He exploded into motion, but not toward her. After a moment's puzzled observation, she figured out that he was shadowboxing, or whatever the big time fighters liked to call their warm-up exercises. She watched him a bit longer, until he began to repeat the pattern. She flowed into the pattern, allowing it to carry her along. Before long, she had drawn her second fan, and was embellishing the kata for her own weapons.

As he watched her deadly dance, Zero grinned to himself. She was a fast learner, even for a robot. As she made a short, jabbing thrust with one of the fans, he dropped into her pattern, and it became a two-part dance, his sword flickering here and there, her fans deflecting and thrusting at him, never quite touching, never quite taking the final step toward true combat.

They went on like that for the better part of half an hour, embellishing the pattern until it bore almost no resemblance at all to the original, simple kata. Then, as if on cue, they stopped, bowed to one another, and sheathed their weapons. Zero nodded to his student and resumed the knee rests, motioning her to her own set. She knelt, looking him in the eyes.

Zero bowed his head and resumed his meditation, without a word. Sierra sighed and did the same.

Three hours and half a dozen kata lessons later, Sierra felt the definite beginning of an edge on her appetite. She had, over the past four hours, learned several things, among which was the fact that Zero was not, in fact, like his companions, who he had finally solved the mystery of by naming as X and Sigma. His construction was closer, in basic theory, to Sierra's own. True, he wasn't actually a cyborg; he had no actual organic parts, for example; but his construction was eerily similar.

Apparently, he could also become hungry, as he stood and motioned for her to do the same. "I was told," he stated, "that you threw away most of your food yesterday. Why?"

Sierra shrugged. "I didn't like the taste."

Zero chuckled lightly. "Indeed. Well, we shall have to do something about that, then." He began walking toward the far side of the dojo, toward a door Sierra had not noticed before. She followed, for lack of anything better to do.

As they neared the door, her nose caught a faint smell of something spicy. As the door opened, the smell became almost irresistible.

Zero stopped before entering and gestured Sierra forward. Taking the gesture at face value, she walked in ahead of him, and her eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

On a small camp stove boiled a pot of what looked like some sort of stew. The smell told her that it had some sort of fish, maybe even several, along with enough peppers to make a Cajun cry.

Sierra heard chuckling behind her. Zero stood, leaned against the wall, his sleeves rolled up, watching her. "An old man by the name of Joe taught me how to make it," he remarked, stepping forward and dishing out a couple bowls.

Sierra gaped for a minute or so more, then took a seat and began to eat.

Half an hour (and a half pot of gumbo) later, they washed the bowls and made their way back into the dojo.

Sierra felt distinctly uncomfortable, kneeling on the kneepads after such a heavy meal, but forced herself to breathe as she had been taught. When the darkness came for her this time, though, she couldn't stop it, and felt herself falling forward, downward, into a yawning pit...

Zero remained on his pads, watching as his pupil slumped. Watching, and waiting for her to fight her way back out of the stupor.

It was dark. Dark, and intolerably cold. A breeze blew, from somewhere. It felt like it was coming from below her. Sierra opened her eyes...

And she was falling. Falling, with no bottom to the abyss in sight. She screamed, but there was no sound. It was as if the very air wished nothing more than to end her life, to suck out her soul and crush it with its stony silence. She was afraid.

Below her, she saw a small pinprick of light. No; an eye. Two eyes. A face. A familiar face. Her... mother?

"Mommy..." she cried, tears stinging her eyes, freezing on her cheeks. A flood of images assaulted her mind. That one day, when she'd been tripped, and the floor hadn't stopped her fall.

The day her world turned upside down. The day FATE had taken her out of her own world, turned her into... A machine. A cold, unfeeling shell of a person, without even the most basic of emotions.

But they had not been thorough enough. She'd recovered those emotions, over the years, but she'd hid them well. Well enough that she didn't know of them, herself. But they were there, creeping on the edge of her sanity, waiting for her to falter, to show an instant of weakness.

And she had finally succumbed, allowed herself to be taken. Why? Because of a stranger's eyes. Because they reminded her of her mother's eyes...

Sierra pitched forward, almost vomiting on the floor of the dojo, as she finally came to. Zero placed a hand on her shoulder, to steady her as she gulped air. Her chest heaved in and out as she labored for breath.

Finally, after a short eternity, Sierra opened her eyes. "What... what did you do to me?" she asked, scuttling away from him a bit.

Zero looked her in the eyes, and shrugged. "I didn't."

Sierra's eyes still held fear, and that fear was centered on the person who had, apparently, caused the whole episode.

"Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what's happened in your past. I'm not going to spout some Zen bullshit about everything having its time and place, either. I will tell you this; I was scared, for a few minutes there. Scared that another of my students was about to die before my eyes, and not a damn thing I could do about it."

Sierra saw the genuine emotion in the reploid's eyes. Saw it, and was ashamed. Ashamed of herself, for being so weak, and allowing the emotions to take her.

She blinked away a tear, and hung her head. "I... I'm sorry... sensei..."

Zero reached out and lifted her chin with one hand, forcing her to look him in the eye. "You have nothing to be sorry about. I want you to swear to me, here and now, that you will tell me if anything is wrong with you, at any point in our lessons."

Sierra would have nodded, but at about that moment, there was a loud 'CRASH' outside the dojo. As they turned to look, Sierra and Zero saw a large section of the wall bulge inward, and then another, splintering the wooden paneling.

Sierra looked at Zero. Zero looked at Sierra. They both looked back at the wall just in time to see what looked like a flaming bird's head smash through the wall, with what looked like an ostrich's leg driving it. Zero sighed, and grabbed the silvery cylinder from his belt. There was a whooshing sound, as of air being released from a compressor's hose, and suddenly there was a three-foot-long, glowing, green blade extending from the hilt of the saber.

"Behind the rack, there's a box, with thumbprint locks. Open it. It's a bit early, but I don't have much of a choice. I'm going to need a partner to straighten this mess out, and you're it."

Sierra nodded, shaking the aftereffects of... whatever that had been... out of her mind. She stood, a bit wobbly but regaining her composure, and walked over to the weapons rack. As Zero had said, there was a case behind it, with two thumbprint readers and several flashing green and red lights. Tentatively, Sierra pressed her thumbs to the lock plates, and the lights all turned green, then flashed red. With a soft hiss, the box opened.

Inside were two flat, silvery objects, each about six inches long. From the end of each extended a pair of bars, about a foot and a half long, with what looked like lenses lining the inner edges. Sierra blinked at them, and turned back to look at Zero. He nodded, smiling a small half-smile. She took one in either hand, feeling the soft contours of the cool metal in the palms of her hands as she wrapped her fingers around them. They felt surprisingly like the worn handles of her practice fans.

As she tightened her grip, there was a sharp snap, and the prongs spread apart, revealing themselves to be several similar prongs instead of just the two she had seen. That ceased to matter, to her, when the lenses emitted a green light, and the spaces between the spokes filled with energy, held in place by what her hearing told her were magnetic fields.

They were almost the exact weight of the fans she'd been given the day before, and there was little adjustment required to accommodate the new, deadlier aspect of the elegant weapons.

Zero nodded, and made for the door. The burning head had been pulled back out, by now, and there were definite sounds of struggle coming from outside the room. Said sounds consisted of rending steel, lots of what sounded like blaster fire, and several electronic death screams.

Zero led the way, with Sierra on his heels. They didn't have long to wait before seeing the first of their foes.

He was a large one, black and white, with three claws extending from either hand. He looked rather like a large panda bear.

"Pandamonium. Figures," muttered Zero, readying his blade. In Panda's eyes, there was a strange, black glow.

He growled and lunged, nearly skewering both of them on his claws. Zero let his blade slip back around, in a behind-the-back chop, and the left arm's claws were out of the game. Sierra used her fans to block a second swipe, and ducked a third, driving inside his guard and planting a strong kick to his midsection.

Pandamonium didn't budge; he was too busy being run through by Zero's saber.

'One down, fifty to go,' Zero silently tallied. He could see at least three more along the corridor, in varying stages of the madness. There were others, like Burn Rooster, who'd tried to fight, but most had been killed off in the process.

Seeing the black flecks in what had been pure white around Pandamonium's face, Zero sighed. "Damn virus... They told me it was destroyed."

Sierra blinked and slowly edged away from the corpse. "Virus?" she asked, tentatively.

Zero nodded. "Yeah. They used my code to create a virus that could affect more complex robots. The ones they infected as a test were uncontrollable, though. They said they'd destroyed it..."

Sierra blinked. "Then... Is that"  
"Probably. It doesn't affect cyborgs the same way, since they still have organic brains. It usually doesn't affect them at all, aside from the initial discomfort."

Sierra nodded, some small measure of her confidence restored. She might have said something afterwards, or she might not have.

It ceased to matter, as a large explosion threw them both to the ground.

As they turned, they saw KOS-MOS, her eyes glowing blue, one arm having apparently been exchanged for a cannon. She looked at the remaining mavericks, her eyes narrowed, and raised her arm again.

Her command script prompted her to speak the key phrase, at this point, signifying that the cannon was charging. But, in her current state, her command script was the last thing on her mind, so she didn't give warning before firing off her volley.

Sierra would later reflect that it had looked nice, no matter how devastating it was. A swirling mass of color erupted from the muzzle of her gun-arm, wrapped in a coruscating black containment field. As it flew, it expanded, finally becoming a three-foot-wide globe of destructive power. Sierra and Zero both ducked underneath it, but the first of the three mavericks wasn't so lucky. Where its head (remarkably similar to a large ant's head) has been, there was no longer anything but a glowing haze. The remainder of its body slowly evaporated in a swirling mist, as the nanites reduced it to its base elements.

"You will cease your activities or be eliminated," she spoke, flatly, her eyes on the two remaining mavericks.

The nearer of the two leveled some sort of rifle at her, and fired. Six inches from her face, it slammed into a wall of nothing, and ricocheted into the nearby wall. KOS-MOS fired again, her eyes narrowed, and the second of the three mavericks was laid low.

The only remaining maverick was Overdrive, and he was putting his speed to good use. From one side to the other of the corridor he ran, steadily approaching KOS-MOS where she stood over Sierra and Zero. KOS-MOS couldn't draw a bead on him with her cannon, so quickly and randomly did he move. In moments, he was upon her.

KOS-MOS threw her close combat programming into motion, letting the nanites exchange her cannon for the broad, short energy dagger that was her signature.

The two fought for the better part of a minute, neither able to gain the upper hand over the other. Overdrive had a vicious kick, and a seemingly endless supply of the small bladed disks he was shooting at her with one of his wing-like arms.

KOS-MOS was no slouch, herself, holding the energy dagger in one hand and one of her blasters in the other. She fell into the rhythm of the battle naturally, and it was soon apparent which of the two had been built for this sort of combat.

Overdrive unleashed another of his vicious kicks, and a green blade flew in a hissing arc from underneath. Zero's saber removed the insane reploid's leg just above the knee, and, with the momentum of the kick carrying him, Overdrive shot by, toppling to the ground.

KOS-MOS planted one foot at the base of his long neck, and the muzzle of her blaster on the back of its skull. Without preamble, she pulled the trigger, relieving the maverick of his head in a rather grotesque manner.

Sierra and Zero stood, tentatively, and looked at her. Her eyes had gone back to their normal, deep red, and she appeared to be completely calm.

"We must go to the hangar. It is no longer safe to remain here. There is an eighty percent probability that the remaining mavericks will destroy this facility."

Zero nodded, silently, and looked down the corridor. There were intermittent flashes, and occasionally bolts of plasma or other weapons fire flew pas the opening of the hall.

He looked at Sierra; Sierra looked back at him. They both nodded, and started toward the end of the hall, with KOS-MOS leading the way...

Saga of Steel Part II: Heart of Steel

Zero rounded the corner, his saber preceding him by bare millimeters, and swept into the fray, his deadly dance reducing all comers to piles of scrap and wire. Sierra and KOS-MOS followed in his wake, putting the final touches on those few he hadn't destroyed outright, both with impressed looks on their faces as they watched the master work.

Sierra caught a glance at KOS-MOS eyes, and they were red again; she wasn't even certain that her eyes had told the truth the first time, now, but she could see the image in her mind's eye perfectly, the blazing blue radiance from her eyes cutting through the powerless darkness of the halls like twin sapphire beacons.

Zero's eyes were blank as he cut down reploid after reploid, a seemingly endless sea of smaller drones among them. His gi was tattered, burned in places, but nothing had touched him inside of it. His long blonde hair flew picturesquely around him as he cut down those affected by the virus. It was simple. He danced, and they died.

A plasma bolt whanged against the improvised shield of Sierra's fans, reflecting up and to the right, into the wall. As she moved forward to finish the reploid that had fired the shot, she felt more than saw a presence behind her. Something dark streaked past her, leapt into the air, and came down with a shriek of defiance and a pair of glowing, purple blades.

The doomed reploid howled an electronic death scream and pitched forward, its upper body cloven in two. The dark figure extracted his scythes with sideward jerks, fully removing the robot's torso from its lower body with a shower of sparks and molten metal. It turned to face Sierra, and, to her surprise, bowed deeply, the scythes (now dark) laid along the back of its arms.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, Miss," he said, in a voice that would have chilled Sierra's blood if she'd had any. "I am the chief of security for this installation. My name is Dark Mantis. Please follow me."

KOS-MOS nodded to her, her expression indifferent, and Sierra shrugged. He was going the same way Zero had, anyway, so why not?

"Okay," she said, and began to follow him.

He was an extremely fast, very agile robot, leaping from wall to wall, his violet scythes cleaving anything in their path. His movements smacked of the sort of flamboyance that was the exact opposite of the economy of movement Zero taught. And yet, there was some degree of restraint, as if he did not quite wish to kill his fellows, though he knew it had to be done.

Sierra found herself watching him almost as closely as she had watched Zero, and picking up a few things into the bargain. Like that neat wall-jump he seemed so fond of. It was a bit tougher for her; she weighed more, and she wasn't really built for it.

But she managed. She had to put away one of her fans to do it, but she was able to move more quickly by jumping over the scattered debris than she could have by wading through it. KOS-MOS didn't seem hampered by the corpses that littered the floor, though, as she kept up a steady barrage with her two blaster pistols, laying down cover fire where it was needed.

They soon reached a junction, and, following the path with the most carnage, they trekked onward. They were, it seemed, headed towards the hangar; that was good, as the only hope of survival now seemed to be escape.

Zero's trail wasn't hard to follow. They simply had to follow the paths where the most mavericks lay dead, and take out the few that remained. Sierra noted that they seemed to be lessening in number, the closer to the hangar they came.

Finally, they reached the double doors Sierra had marked mentally as the hangar airlock (why the hangar had an airlock, she didn't know, but it did; a short, corridor-like one, with large security doors at either end). There were no more enemies here, at least, and the three of them stopped to take a breather (well, more like a recharging break, given that they'd been fighting pretty much non-stop since leaving Zero's dojo.)

Sierra took out her other fan and slouched against a wall, sitting down on the small bench seat built into it. KOS-MOS simply stood, her face non-expressive, and Mantis stood at the small computer terminal on the wall opposite Sierra, working on setting the internal security forces into motion.

Finally, with a satisfied nod, he turned back toward Sierra and KOS-MOS. "It would seem that this all started in one of the research labs. Some butter-fingered oaf dropped a vial of nanites containing the viral code, and they've been spreading around the base ever since."

"Figures. Trust a scientist to be at the bottom of it..." grumbled Sierra, rolling her eyes.

"Perhaps we should leave the facility while we still can. There is an 87 probability that the nanovirus will be destroyed by the base's internal filtering system, but it will take time."

Mantis nodded, and opened the hangar door...

The room appeared empty, at first glance; there were no rogue reploids, no signs of ranged struggle, no plasma or blaster scorches on the walls. But something felt off about the room, nonetheless.

As they rounded the first group of vehicles, it became apparent.

"So nice of you to join us," said the deep, basso rumble Sierra remembered as Sigma's. A second voice chuckled, and their ears caught the whining that meant someone was charging a weapon.

From the shadows, three figures emerged. One of them was Sigma, and he had that silver cylinder in his left hand, gripped like some sort of sword. Another was X, a strange attachment fitted to his cannon arm.

The third was Zero, and he was bound at the wrists and ankles, his mouth gagged.

Without warning, X raised his cannon arm and fired, his shot taking Mantis high in the chest. The reploid was knocked over, and his torso covered in a black, writhing mass.

He screamed once as the nanites went to work, rearranging his operating code, his very power core... and then, he laughed a high-pitched, maniacal laugh.

Sigma pointed to Sierra. "Kill her. She is of no use to us."

Mantis nodded, and leapt forward in a blindingly fast strike.

Sierra's fans caught his blades, barely, and the battle was joined.

It was soon quite clear who was the better fighter of the two. Though agile, and strong for her size, Sierra was no match, under the circumstances, for the speedier reploid. She soon bore evidence, in the form of charred holes in her gi, of his blades. He remained untouched, though the black taint on his armor was still spreading.

And then, he slipped. As the taint reached his eyes, they flickered, for a bare moment...

Sierra took her chance. With a spinning forward hop, she brought her fans to bear in a vicious double strike. Words boiled from inside her throat, unbidden, as her blades struck home: "Aoru no Gunryo, SWAN SONG!"

One fan met Mantis's crossed blades.

The other split him in half, from left hip to right shoulder.

The resulting explosion created a rather ugly mess on the floor.

Sigma smirked. X gaped. Zero looked mightily impressed, or at least as much so as he could under the circumstances.

Sierra turned to the three of them, and spoke a single, percussive word.

"NEXT."

/Manowar, "Metal Warriors" The Triumph of Steel/

X started to raise his cannon again, but Sigma stopped him. "You presume to challenge me, child? You could not even handle the Mantis without resorting to trickery. What makes you think you can take me?"

Sierra glared at him. "I probably can't... but I'm not going down without a fight!"

Sigma laughed at her. "Well, then, a fight you shall have!"

Sigma threw his cloak aside, and took the cylinder from his belt. With a high-pitched keening, a long, purple shaft of light grew from the handle, and Sigma smirked. "Prepare to be taught the final lesson, kid. -NOBODY- challenges Sigma and walks away."

Sierra squared herself, watching from the corner of her eye as the one in blue dragged Zero backwards, presumably to clear the dueling floor. Her attention was mostly caught by Sigma's mind-bendingly violet saber. She watched it carefully, waiting for it to come slashing at her.

Watching the saber was her first (and very nearly last) mistake. She was barely paying attention to the rest of her foe's body...

A blast of red light struck out from Sigma's left hand, bee-lining straight for her chest. One of her fans managed to reach the area before the blast, but it was still enough to knock her off balance. Sigma's saber flashed through the air in a vicious overhand chop, fully intending to relieve this foolish girl of her pitiful life.

The other fan came to bear, catching the purple blade in a V of green energy. The force of the blow was still enough to throw her backwards, though, and Sierra wound up flat on her back, the fans crossed defensively above her.

Sigma smirked and turned his back, his saber extended to one side. "Such a pitiful display... Almost as pitiful as your fool of a teacher!" He whirled, leaping forward with another of those vicious overhand chops.

Sierra's crossed fans met the blade, and were carried down by the force until the light was close enough to illuminate her face. Sigma sneered at the look of determination he saw there, her pitiful efforts at forcing him back unsuccessful. "Do you know why I'm able to beat you so easily?" he asked, his tone somewhere between the typical villainous sneer and a truly questioning one.

Sierra threw her weight into the attempt to knock him back, succeeding in driving the saber away all of an inch. "Because you're an evil son of a bitch?" she asked, through gritted teeth.

"Because you're human!" he said, slashing his blade to the side, nearly wresting the fans from Sierra's grasp. "Humans are weak, pathetic, -mortal-! True robots... We're strong, unerring... Immortal! No human can match us!"

From the shadows where X had dragged Zero, there was a short, garbled metallic scream. Both Sigma and Sierra turned toward the area...

KOS-MOS had, upon entering the room, slipped into her own form of stealth. She'd moved out along the wall, careful to avoid making noise. As the first battle had begun, her eyes had changed from their usual red to an intermediate shade of purple.

At Sigma's proclamation that humans were weak, they'd turned pure, sapphire blue, and her secondary protocols had taken over. X had been the closest to her, holding Zero's bindings in one hand and keeping his cannon leveled at his head with the other arm. She'd extended her own blade, a viscous red-colored energy spike, from her right arm's vambrace, and slashed at his back, causing the scream that had drawn Sierra and Sigma's attention.

She wrenched the blade upward again, severing the lines leading from X's power core. He fell forward, limp, his eyes completely dark. KOS-MOS stepped around his wreckage and cut Zero's bindings, then helped him to his feet.

Zero looked at Sierra, once, and nodded. "It's time for you to stop holding back. You're faster than he is... Use that to your advantage."

Sierra's eyes went momentarily blank. Images flooded through her mind, memories of her life, of her training... everything.

Her eyes cleared after about a second (a short eternity, for a neural processor), and she threw her weight forward and upward, driving Sigma back. Using the momentum, she flipped over backwards, and then did so again, putting distance between herself and Sigma. On the second landing, she let herself fall partly, into a spring-like crouch, fans to either side.

Using the crouch as a winding point, she leapt upwards, a short litany boiling from inside her.

"Aoru no Gunryo! RISING! DRAGON!"

Sigma watched all this with a half amused, half shocked look on his face. As she leapt, he crouched, his saber extended low and to one side, both hands on the hilt. As she reached her apex, he leapt into the air as well, his saber flashing upwards in a screaming violet arc.

Sierra's fans and Sigma's saber met, mid air, at about the time Sierra's scream was finished. Energy seemed to flow from her fans, completely encompassing her, transfiguring her. Wings of green light swept from her back, rending the air as they carried her upwards several feet with a single beat. Sigma fell to the floor, knocked backwards by the intensity of the energies flowing around the young cyborg. His saber seemed to flicker as even its energy seemed eclipsed by this awful force.

Sierra hovered in mid air for an impossible moment, the wings of green light fully extended to either side, her fans swept back, her silvery hair billowing like some absurd cloak in the not-wind that held her aloft.

Then the tableau shattered, and she plummeted downward, her fans a glittering blur as they swept forward.

The first thing her fan touched was the wrist of Sigma's saber hand. The hand (and the saber) clattered away, leaving him completely open...

For Sierra's second fan, which proceeded to split his head like a melon. Zero watched, whistling appreciatively. "Never thought to do that, before..." he muttered, smiling. KOS-MOS nodded to Sierra, her eyes going red again as she turned to look at the shuttles.

"My sensors indicate that the base's self destruct mechanism has been activated. It would be wise to leave this place in as expedient a manner as possible."

Sierra and Zero didn't need to be told twice. Stopping only long enough to scavenge his saber from Sigma's corpse, Zero made for the closest shuttle at a dead run, slapping the induction plate to lower the ramp.

The ramp took an agonizing ten seconds to open, as muffled explosions heralded the beginning of the end for the mountain-buried base. Sierra and KOS-MOS followed Zero closely as he leapt onto the still-falling ramp. From there, Zero made directly for the navigator's console, motioning for KOS-MOS and Sierra to take the pilot's chair and gunner's seat, respectively.

Sierra felt and heard the rumbling of the ship's engines behind and below her as they spooled up, whining with the momentary strain of startup. They quieted somewhat as everything warmed up, leaving a subliminal hum and throbbing as the repulsors slowly lifted the ship into the air.

KOS-MOS extracted a set of jack plugs from her forearm and plugged into the control panel, her face devoid of emotion. "Opening main airlock. Prepare for engine redline."

There was a shuddering crash outside the ship, and one of the large frames stepped from its shackles, a large piece of I-beam in its hands. An electronic voice cackled over the ship's speakers, and Zero cursed. "Bastard always comes back..." he said, sighing.

Sierra, not knowing what Zero meant or really caring, let the robot have it with both barrels. Well, okay, technically all six barrels. The consciousness formerly known as Sigma ceased to have any real significance, in a rather messy manner.

Zero whooped with joy and swept Sierra up and into a kiss, before realizing where he was, who he was holding, blushing bright crimson, and breaking away. Sierra blinked, fell back into her seat, and shook her head, before smiling.

KOS-MOS wisely ignored this byplay, instead focusing on getting the airlock open and the ship started on its way toward that opening.

/Kenny Loggins 'Danger Zone' Top Gun Soundtrack/

The tunnel to the outside of the mountain had partially caved in, at some point; girders of every shape and size lined the walls, presenting a very difficult path. Some places would have to be gunned before they could pass, and if the explosions were any indication, they didn't have time to dawdle about it. KOS-MOS looked to Sierra and nodded, once. There was no need for more communication than that.

The ship leapt forward, engines screaming, guns blazing as the two women went to work, plying their deadly trades. Sierra ignored some of the smaller things outright; things like cables, and thin supports. The rest, she blasted freely, one eye constantly on her power consumption rate, the other on her targeting scope.

There are certain rules of etiquette in a trench run of this sort. First and foremost is -never- cut someone else off.

Sierra scowled, planted both hands firmly on the gunner's joysticks, and let the small black ship have every barrel she could bring to bear. It exploded rather prettily, and opened up a gap nicely by way of its fireball. Sierra made a mental note to thank someone in her prayers that night, if she survived.

All told, the run took about two minutes. There were close calls, a few more cut-ins, and a running gunfight with a very small, very annoying robot that looked allot like a jellyfish.

About a minute after their ship burst out of the tunnel, the whole mountain went up in flames. Rivers of molten metal and rock flowed from the tunnels and doors scattered across the mountainside, ensuring that only the most intrepid, fire-bred of the bots inside could survive... and that they would be locked in there until the countermeasures took care of them.

The SkyHawk made a lazy turn toward the northeast under KOS-MOS' guidance, and, with the autopilot set to head for Maine, the three warriors decided to take a well-earned break. 


End file.
